Microsoft Dynamics SL 2015
Enhanced features and Expanded Access
Project
Microsoft Dynamics SL continues to expand on the breadth and depth of its project solution. Enhancements for Microsoft Dynamics SL 2015 focus on the Multi-Currency and Multi-Company areas as well as remote access through Web Apps.
Financial
No matter how many times you do something, there is a way to improve. With the latest release, Microsoft Dynamics SL continues to use valuable customer feedback to enhance tried and true features to help make processing easier.
Reporting
To report or not to report is not the question. It’s more about where and when to report and how to share that information. Microsoft Dynamics SL continues to enhance the reporting experience including creation of refreshable Excel and pivot tables as well as making reports available via the web.
Web Apps
Microsoft Dynamics SL web apps introduced with Dynamics SL 2011, provide a new way to access and enter data into Microsoft Dynamics SL. The roadmap continues with new features being added in Microsoft Dynamics SL 2015 web apps.
Microsoft Dynamics SL Project enhancements
Microsoft Dynamics SL Project features continue to be a game changer for customers. The built in functionality and flexibility make it a great fit for many industries, especially for companies that use project tracking across multiple business settings. The project enhancements in this release have wide-spread impact, affecting the way you work with your customers and providing greater project management efficiencies to your staff. This release reflects the growing needs of our project companies.
Multi-Company Processing
Project processes (examples: Allocations, Indirect Rate Calculator) and project reports have been enhanced for customers operating across more than one company. Processes and reports that were dependent on the current company, no longer have this limitation. With multi-company enhancements, they can be run for any company from just one login. There is no need to change companies to run processes or reports.
Multi-Company Security
Project lookup lists now display the Project and its associated company. And users now only see Company Projects if they have access rights to a company. This can reduce the number of projects seen and provides a relevant list of projects.
Multi-Currency Project base currency
The multi-currency features in the Project series has been enhanced. Now both the Company base currency and the Project currency are stored for project transactions. In scenarios where the project currency differs from the company base currency, project transactions, including subcontractor costs and billings will be tracked in both currencies. This provides reporting options in either the company’s base currency or the project currency.
Taxable Items
Accounts Payable sales tax applicable to vouchers and adjustment entries now flow from and to the Project and Task specified in the detail lines.
Basic Resource Management
Microsoft Dynamics SL Project information includes projects, tasks, assigned resources, estimated start and end dates, and estimated hours. These are the things needed to start basic resource planning. A new web app will provide a project dashboard view displaying the resources available to assign to
Microsoft Dynamics SL Financial enhancements
Making Microsoft Dynamics SL processes simpler is a focus for the entire product. Even with a mature offering like Dynamics SL, we’ve found areas to improve through our product suggestion tool.
Accounts Payable
Calculations and creation of Vendor backup withholdings, currently a manual process, can now be
processed automatically at the time of payment selection. Vendors are flagged for 1099 non-compliance. The result is that any Payables batches containing a non-compliant vendor can automatically create a withholding batch.
In situations where you are making multiple prepayments against one vendor invoice, these can now be applied against a single voucher using the new Multi-prepayments screen.
Accounts Receivable
Many times invoices are entered and not reviewed. The proof comes to light when invoices are printed and errors become apparent. Now with Invoice Preview you can review each invoice prior to release individually or through a new Quick Query invoice preview screen.
Payroll
New enhancements in the payroll module focus on removing redundant or unnecessary steps.
When a deduction amount is changed in Review/Edit Check, the process of re-calculating “subject earnings YTD” is now automated.
Voided Checks that need to be reissued can be done so without re-running the Pay Labor Interface. This eliminates the need to re-enter time as the time entry is reactivated when the original check is voided.
Gross up checks are supported with automatic calculation of deductions using the appropriate tax tables and applicable deduction records according to the maximum limits. This feature is available for all earning types and overrides of deduction amounts are permitted.
Enhanced audit trail for Payroll now tracks changes made to: Deductions, Tax Tables, Employee Deductions and Employee Pay Information. Reports display these changes along with date, time, and users who have made these changes.
Multi-Company Login enhancement
When logging in or switching companies in Microsoft Dynamics SL, users will now only be able to select and view companies to which they have access rights. Lookup lists will no longer display every company available, but adhere to the security rights for the user, displaying the assigned companies.
Microsoft Dynamics SL Reporting enhancements
Microsoft Dynamics SL continues to focus on enhancing reporting for the everyday accounting user while expanding the secure availability of reports to the non-accounting user.
Reports – Emailing
Reports can be previewed and now emailed as attachments with the click of a button. New email
capabilities have been added to the SAP Crystal Reports and Microsoft SQL Server Report Services (SSRS) preview interfaces. Users can select the report format and email address, allowing them to share report information.
Report – Report Formats
Support has been added to allow for unlimited report formats. To assist in choosing one of these
unlimited report formats is a new feature that defines the most commonly used report format for a report, by company. Now when a report is opened, it will default to the defined format.
Report – Meta data
Newly added metadata for reporting means there is no longer a need to guess what a field means when trying to select specific data to display on a report. For instance, the field name“vr_01610A.acct” will be shown with the description, “Account”. In addition it will also display a status indicating if the field is currently on the report (Yes or No) and whether it came from another table (ex. Account.Acct).
Possible Values list – More intuitive lookups…
The core feature of looking up data, found in most screens, has had a makeover. The same filter capabilities used in Quick Query to intuitively narrow your lookup options as you type now work in populating the possible values in all look up lists.
Quick Query – Refreshable Excel files
Quick Query provides end users the ability to find data to answer questions, drill back into the product or to share the data by exporting it to Microsoft Excel. With Dynamics SL 2015, the Grid to Excel feature in Quick Query has been enhanced to support the creation of refreshable excel table documents as well as pivot tables. Now data can be exported once and then opened and refreshed over and over again.
Quick Query Web Apps
Quick Query accessibility is now being expanded to the new web apps for Dynamics SL. This means Quick Queries can now be viewed on tablets and smartphones along with desktop machines.
Microsoft Dynamics SL Web Apps
The future of access to Microsoft Dynamics SL will be the investment in Microsoft Dynamics SL Web Apps. Written in HTML5, Dynamics SL Web Apps provide browser-based access to view and enter data through a tablet, smartphone or desktop machine.
Microsoft Dynamics SL 2011 Web Apps CU1
Microsoft Dynamics SL 2011 Web Apps added the core features to remote project users. The key areas include Project Time, Expense and the related approval screens. These existing features will be updated to run on Microsoft Dynamics SL 2015 Web Apps.
Project Time Entry with support for Project Flex Time Project Correcting Timecards
Project T type-Timecard support (supporting prepopulated time cards) Project Expense Entry (with attachments)
Project Expense Reports
Project Time & Expense Approval Project Analyst
Microsoft Dynamics SL 2015 Web Apps
Accompanying the Dynamics SL 2015 release will be an update to the Dynamics SL Web Apps. In addition to the 2011 CU1 features, Microsoft Dynamics SL 2015 Web Apps will include the following:
Project Timesheet Entry Project Communicator
Project Maintenance & Inquiry Billing Information Maintenance Project Maximums Maintenance
Percent Complete and Revenue Recognition Setup Address Maintenance
Contract Value and Revenue Information Budget Maintenance and Inquiry
Budget Revision Maintenance, Approval, Inquiry, and Analysis Project Invoice Approval
Project Delegations Approval Item Request Entry & Approval
Basic Resource Management Web App
The Resource Management web app brings new functionality needed by project managers. The Resource Management dashboard app will allow project managers to quickly view resource assignments by project.
Source Code for Web Apps
Web Aps include source code. This gives you the ability to customize screens by adding/removing fields or by adding code.
Contact a Microsoft partner to find out how Microsoft Dynamics SL can help your business. Or to find out more about Microsoft Dynamics SL, visit www.microsoft.com/dynamics/sl. United States and Canada toll-free: (1) (888) 477-7989 Worldwide: (1) (701) 281-6500.
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.
3/2014
Microsoft Dynamics Continued Connectivity
As new Microsoft and Microsoft Dynamics shared features are created, Microsoft Dynamics SL continues to invest by connecting to these new products.
Business Analyzer for Windows 8 Phone
The Business Analyzer, initially introduced with Microsoft Dynamics SL 2011 FP1, is continually adding new updates. This includes support for Windows 8 and Windows 8 Phone.
Office 365
Microsoft Dynamics SL continues to support Office 365 and SharePoint Online. This includes features like Grid to Excel, Doc Share, Upload to SharePoint and Attachments.
Windows Azure
Microsoft Dynamics SL 2011 and 2015 are able to run in a hosted environment and Microsoft Azure is a supported choice. With Azure, you can host Dynamics SL through a hosting partner or through your internal IT department.
